I read liturgies and pray in tongues

(This is a guest post by a dear friend who chose to stay anonymous. I was so encouraged by her clear words and testimony. Be blessed!)

I’m an English teacher, which means that well-crafted words capture my soul. Some of the most beautiful words I’ve found have been in liturgies—written prayers passed down through the church over the centuries or just published by believers in the last few years. Every Moment Holy has been a volume of prayers that I reach for again and again during my intentional worship times. Various liturgies have spoken to my soul and repeatedly cleansed my mind over the last few years. 

I’m Mennonite, not Pentecostal or “charismatic,” yet I daily pray in tongues. God gave me the gift late one Friday night as I was driving home from a time of worship with friends. As I was singing along with worship and repeating my heart prayer, “God, give me more of You,” I began saying phrases in another language, phrases that I didn’t understand but that gave me deep settled-ness and joy. This gift, exercised both loudly in private and quietly in the presence of other believers, has given me a deeper appreciation for the goodness of nature and God’s gifts as well as power to resist temptation and habitual sin.

The form of liturgies and the gift of tongues are both debated in Anabaptist circles; both find their modern appearance in vastly different church traditions.

I deeply appreciate tongues and liturgies and want to keep both as a habit in my life. This is my story of practicing both.

My appreciation for written prayers came from a couple of close friends who would often bring the Daily Office to a time of devotions. With my interest piqued, I bought Every Moment Holy (a collection of prayers for many occasions, ranging from “For Those Who Weep Without Knowing Why” to “A Sick Day” to “For Students and Scholars”). These prayers led me to others, including different selections from The Book of Common Prayer. The morning prayer in Common Prayer: Pocket Edition allows for the reader to insert a song, a psalm, and scripture, repeating after each text: “In our lives and in our prayers: may your kingdom come.”

As a lover of words (a logophile), the intentional phrasing and depth of meaning found in many liturgies has been the main reason I enjoy using them. Of course, we Anabaptists hesitate to habitually use them in our churches because some legitimate arguments can be made against using liturgies. It’s easy to mindlessly read the words without engaging our hearts, leading to empty worship and maybe even hypocritical praise. However, just because that can happen doesn’t mean that it will happen and is not a reason for us to avoid written prayers in services together. (Additionally, one could argue that singing the same songs over and over is a form of liturgy and can just as quickly become mindless and meaningless.) Something powerful and visceral happens when a group of believers recites the Apostles’ Creed—“I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit…” Or, when friends sit quietly while someone reads “A Liturgy for Leavings” as a group prepares to say goodbye and leave friends behind.

Currently, I use liturgies in my personal devotional times, allowing intentional words to engage my still-tired mind early in the morning. I’ve had to stop myself and re-pray sections when I’ve zoned out. Occasionally, I lead my students in “A Liturgy for Students and Scholars,” leading out in some sections and having them collectively read some sections together. It gives us good reminders on Monday mornings: “Let me be in this school, even in small ways, a bearer of love and light and reconciliation; which is to say, let me in humility be your child.” I wish our churches would more often incorporate collectively-spoken prayers into our church services.

Admittedly, sharing about practicing the gift of tongues is a tad frightening—it’s impossible to gauge and predict Anabaptist people’s reactions to it. I’ve had friends who have been deeply wounded by people “handing out” the gift of tongues. I’ve had other friends who have barely heard of it (neither positive nor negative) and thus have no framework to even begin to understand what someone means when they say, “I pray in tongues.” I grew up with the latter understanding—nothing was really addressed with tongues and prophecy and gifts of healing when I was growing up. Toward the end of my teen years, I sat under a teacher who was fairly convincing when he proved how tongues and other gifts like that (the “edgy ones”) were specifically for the apostles and had ceased after the canon of Scripture closed. Following that logic, anyone today who was claiming to speak in tongues or have the gift of prophesying over people (outside of sharing a Scripture verse or two) was probably just faking it and or looking for an emotional, dramatic experience with God.

About a year ago, however, I began regularly meeting for worship and prayer times with a small group of trusted friends. During one of these Friday night prayer times, as we were all kneeling on the floor, praying and singing, I heard one of my friends quietly praying to himself as he knelt beside me. I wasn’t really listening (I try to avoid eavesdropping on the prayers of others when they’re quietly praying), but I was startled out of my own prayers when I realized that I couldn’t understand him. Because I knew he didn’t speak any other languages, the first thought that came to mind was, “Wait, is he praying in tongues?!”¹ Later, he told his story about how he was able to pray in this new language after spending time in prayer with another believer. My friend described his newfound gift as his spirit praying, a different kind of prayer coming from inside him than his mind forming words and phrases in English and praying.

Over time, I became used to my friend praying in tongues under his breath. He also grew in the gift of prophecy, often sharing pictures with me or others, but always reminding us to test it.² I never desired the gift of tongues myself—it was too weird, too unknown, and not definitive enough. Deep down, I wanted “an experience” with the Spirit of God. I know it can be dangerous when we chase emotion and experiences. But as a person who rarely cries and tends to be more logical than emotional, I thought that being overwhelmed with tears while feeling the love of God would definitely be testimony to the power of God’s Spirit.

God never gave me that super emotional experience. Instead, I began talking in a normal voice, just in a different and unknown-to-me language. It was a normal Friday night, except that I had come weary and discouraged about school-related news. I asked my friends to pray for me, and one of my friends prayed, “God, I ask that she will be able to pray in the Spirit in her classroom.”³ My eyes popped open, and I almost imitated Sarah in chuckling to myself. Is he talking about tongues? That’s nice, but I don’t need that. But it was that night, as I drove home, that I began saying phrases in another language. A decision was in front of me—to risk walking in this and being wrong or risk ignoring and and missing out on something from God, something powerful. I decided to risk the latter, and it’s changed my life.

Praying in tongues is not an out-of-body experience; God isn’t spontaneously “dribbling my lips” or hitting me with miraculous sparks and syllables. It’s a God-given prayer language that I can use when and if I choose. Praying in tongues just feels like I’m speaking in another language I can’t understand—it’s often not emotional. Additionally, it’s something within my control; I can choose when I want to pray in English or pray in tongues⁴. Praying in tongues is an intentional and habitual part of my life because it’s a good gift that builds up the spirit of a believer (1 Cor. 14:5,6).

One of the most noticeable differences was the already-mentioned deep settled-ness and peace that came that night. Something calmed within me that night, and that sense has continued ever since that February night. Another change I noticed was a deepening of my love of nature. In the following months, as spring came and beautified the farmland I lived in, I noticed that seeing signs of spring and lovely scenery would bring in me a deep urge to pray aloud in tongue, so I did, quite loudly at times in my car. (I still do.)

The most powerful experiential sign for me that this strange new thing was God-given was the power that it gave me to fight temptation. I had struggled with sexual addiction for years, ever since I was a child. Cycles of temptation, repentance, and falling again were the norm in my life. Praying in tongues when I was tempted brought a new power to resist temptation that I had never known before, leading to the freedom I am walking in today! God’s still continuing to redeem that part of my life in ways that surprise me and lead me to worship. A few weeks ago, I faced strong temptation in the area of sexual purity in a degree that I had not wrestled with in months. Even though I didn’t “feel worshipful,” I began praying out loud in tongues, walking in faith that my prayers would be answered. God didn’t just give me the ability to resist temptation. He gave me a beautiful song in tongues—I was singing aloud in a tune I wasn’t trying to create, and it was beautiful! It led to me grinning joyfully and dancing in the same place I had so often given in to temptation. That is redemption, my friends, and that is the power of God that is available to the church today.

The conversation about tongues, and more importantly hearing the voice of God through prophecy and sharing that with others, is incredibly complex and should be continued. But please hear this—the gifts of God, ALL of them, are good. He is a good Father who lavishes His grace on us. His power is available for us to walk in, and He doesn’t want us to simply hunch our shoulders against the storms of this world. Instead, He has given His Spirit and gifts of His Spirit to enable us to be like “eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm.”⁵ So “earnestly desire the spiritual gifts,” all of them, from tongues to prophecy to mercy to words of wisdom to teaching (1 Cor. 14:1)!

Too often, people create dichotomies between church practices like “Anglican liturgies” and “charismatic Pentecostal manifestations of the Holy Spirit.” Both are good. Both are for today. Both can be abused and incorrectly used and misunderstood. But both have enabled me to know God more, to be more intentional, patient, grace-filled, and loving—I praise God for that!

What if we paused our presumptions and dropped our dichotomies about written prayers and spiritual gifts? What if we acknowledged that both the power of manifest spiritual gifts and the words of believers as written in liturgies can encourage and build us up? My dream is to one day see churches comfortable practicing both—how amazing would that be!

Footnotes:

1. I do not believe his praying to be a lack of obedience to the 1 Corinthians 14 command that “if there is no one to interpret, then each of them should keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God.” My friend was not addressing us but rather quietly praying to himself out loud. It was not disruptive to the services (once I got used to the idea) which I hold as the message of Paul’s commands in 1 Corinthians 14.
2.  We often think of prophecy as old men or women in the Old Testament crying out the judgment of Israel as God directed them. This is prophecy. But prophecy also came through pictures, such as when God gave Jeremiah visions of an almond branch and a boiling pot facing away from the north (Jeremiah 1). Or, when Ezekiel saw the valley of dry bones come to life (Ezekiel 37). It can be a word about the future, a call of repentance, a gift of encouragement, or any other purpose that God sees fit to build up His church (1 Cor. 1:14).
3. I do believe that “praying in the Spirit” (Eph. 6) can have various meanings; tongues in only one of them. 
4. To continue this thought, it should be a red-flag when we see or hear of people who describe “out-of-control” gifts or experiences with the Holy Spirit. The manifest gifts of the Spirit (be it tongues, prophesy, healings, etc.) will never be in contradiction with the fruits of the Spirit—love, self-control, and gentleness, to name a few from Galatians 5).
5. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Hymn Before Sunrise, In the Vale of Chamouni,” 1802.

Photo by David Weber on Unsplash